


Crossing a Line

by TenRoseForeverandever



Series: Domestic Bliss [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2031645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenRoseForeverandever/pseuds/TenRoseForeverandever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor becomes aggressively possessive after the events of "The Wire".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing a Line

**Author's Note:**

> This story is the "evil twin" of the story that follows. The cute, fluffy version just wouldn't get written until this one was written first. I don't think either are my best work, but... well, you decide.  
> I rated this one as "Teen" because the Doctor is quite dark for a time, and becomes very possessive, aggressive, and controlling. So, just in case of triggers for this kind of thing, I think the rated is warranted.  
> That all being said, I hope you enjoy it...

**Crossing a Line**

“G’morning,” Rose yawned, stumbling blearily into the kitchen.

“Rose Tyler!” the Doctor replied. “Finally, you’re up!”

“Only ‘cuz you hammered on m’door…”

“You little humans and your depraved obsession with sleep. Honestly, the day’s half gone already, Rose!” He turned away to pop a couple of slices of bread in the toaster, and flicked on the kettle for tea, still prattling away about how the wasted part of their day could have been spent more productively.

Rose groggily registered his use of the word “depraved”, filing it away for future reference when she was coherent enough to respond appropriately. Right now, her bed was begging for her return. She turned away and staggered back to her room, leaving the garrulous Time Lord rambling as he prepared their favourite mugs for tea.

Soon she was flopped luxuriously amongst heaps of duvets and pillows. She revelled in the gentle hum of the TARDIS surrounding her peacefully, and her last drowsy thoughts as she drifted back to sleep was that _this_ was a very productive use of her day.

\-------

“Roooooose.” She quivered as he whispered her name into her ear, feeling his cool breath tickle seductively across her throat.

“Mmmmmm, Doctor…”

“You disappeared, Rose, left me alone. The tea’s gone cold, now.”

Her eyes snapped open from her dream to find the Doctor leaning over her, a bereft expression shadowing his normally animated demeanor.

He pouted like a child, and the eyes that met hers were sad and somehow frightened. “I turned around and you weren’t there. You can’t wander off like that, Rose. How often do we have to go over this?”

“Doctor, we’re on the TARDIS, ‘member? Jus’ went back to my room, yeah. Nothin’s gonna happen to me here.”

“But you need to have breakfast, Rose. Most important meal of the day, breakfast.”

Rose glanced at the bedside clock that she kept set to Earth time. He had wakened her at what time? 5:00 a.m.? Really? “Maybe in a little while, yeah, Doctor? I wanna sleep a little longer. ‘M still knackered from having my brain drained by that ‘Wire’ thing.” Rose noticed his face blanch at the mention of the alien parasite. She smiled gently at him. “’M okay, Doctor. Jus’ need a little more sleep.”

“Guess I’ll just go off and fiddle with the TARDIS, then, while you rest. You rest, Rose… yeah, that’s for the best.” He leaned over and pressed his lips softly to her forehead. She nestled into her pillow, savouring the touch of his cool kiss, and smiled up at him. He gazed at her briefly, then despondently jammed his hands deep into his pinstriped pockets, and reluctantly turned from her and left the room.

“Daft alien,” she muttered fondly as her eyes fluttered closed again.

\-------

She was gradually awakened by a growing awareness of little metallic clinking noises coming from the foot of her bed. Her sleep-hazed eyes discerned a large, dark shape lurking there, and she squealed in shock, dragging herself backward into a defensive crouch, prepared to fight or flee if necessary.

“Ah, you’re awake, Rose!” Her vision cleared to the sight of the Time Lord, sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed, tinkering with a random gadget from the TARDIS, and grinning maniacally at her.

“Doctor!” she yelped. “You scared the sh-”   She felt her pulse slow. “Just how long have you been sittin’ there?”

“Oh, not long, really. Just for a couple of minutes… weeeell, hours, actually. You were asleep   (sleep seems like such a lonely activity) and I thought you’d like the company. Besides, I didn’t want to waste a minute.”

She frowned her confusion at him and he clarified: “To get you breakfast, Rose. The most important meal of the day, remember?” He leaned over and tapped her on the forehead with his index finger. “Now that I know that you’re awake, I’ll go get it ready.” He leaped up from his perch. “You stay right there, Rose Tyler. No wandering off!”

A glance at the clock told her that it was now 8:30 a.m. and, while still earlier than was ideal, she grudgingly told herself that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to get up now. It would make the silly Time Lord happy, anyway. She shook head in wonder at him, chuckling silently to herself at his quirky behaviour: just when she thought she had seen it all, he challenged her and took ‘eccentric’ to a whole new level.

As soon as the bedroom door had shut behind the Doctor, Rose tossed aside the covers and tottered toward the en suite, pausing every few steps to stretch languidly. Suddenly, his head popped back in through the door. “Rose, what kind of jam- Rose? Rose, where are you, Rose?” His voice took on an edge of panic as his eyes quickly surveyed the empty bed. He ran his hands through his hair in his anxiety, tugging at the unruly strands.

“’M right here, Doctor,” Rose spoke quietly.

“I told you not to move, Rose, and the minute my back is turned, what do you do?”

Rose tried not to be offended. She knew there must be something more behind this, but she couldn’t keep the angry tone from her voice, and snapped derisively at him, “Basic biological functions, Doctor.” She sighed impatiently at his mystified expression. “I need the loo!”

“Oh, right, that explains it then.” The manic grin returned. “So, jam?”

“Uh, strawberry, please…”

“And you won’t wander off?”

“Just to the loo,” she assured him, with a roll of her eyes. “I could just meet you in the kitchen, Doctor.”

“No! No, no, no, Rose Tyler. You need to stay put.”

“Doctor, wha-” But he had disappeared down the hall to the kitchen, again. Rose released a long sigh slowly through her lips. She hadn’t realized just how much the Doctor’s jittery behaviour had affected her, made her feel so tense. She decided to have a quick shower to help her relax.

He still hadn’t returned by the time she left the bathroom. She figured that he had probably become fascinated with some deviation in the whatcha-a-thingamie oscillator output or perhaps made some unnecessary repair to the kettle or something and had forgotten all about her. Either way, her stomach was now rumbling ferociously with hunger. “Right! Time for the most important meal of the day, Tyler,” she declared to herself, and walked toward the kitchen.

As she walked through the galley doorway, she smiled at the image of the Doctor standing at the counter, spreading the requested strawberry jam on some toast. He had his back to her and did not notice her approach. “Did ya get lost, Doctor?” she teased. “Did ya have to go to the shop for more jam? Any flavour would have been fine!”

He whirled around abruptly at the sound of her voice, a scowl darkening his face. “You just never listen, do you, Rose?” he snarled.

Rose was taken aback by his menacing manner, but supressed her disquiet and forced herself to maintain a tone of playful banter. “Hey, Mister, don’t you take that attitude with me.” She forced a grin onto her face. “I was gettin’ hungry. You left me waitin’ for my most important meal of the day. ‘S’at any way to treat your loyal companion?”

He stormed toward her, grabbing her roughly by her upper arm and hauling her out of the kitchen into the TARDIS hallway. “You need to listen and do as you’re told. I told you to stay in your room, and that is where you will stay until I know that you can follow instructions properly.”

“What the hell do you think you’re playin’ at?” she yelped, tearing her arm out of his grasp. Her eyes locked with his, and she rapidly concluded that he wasn’t playing at all; that something was terribly wrong. The person who stared back at her, with eyes like black flame, was frighteningly real, frighteningly alien, and all Oncoming Storm. She felt herself shrink before his anger, but compelled herself to stand her ground. “You do not get to speak to me like that! And you certainly don’t get to push me around!”

He loomed over her. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, Rose Tyler. You don’t know what I could do to you.”

Rose was stung by his implied threat, and had to dig very deep to find the resolve to not yield to the terror that gripped her in that moment. She spoke quietly but firmly, “Oh, I have a pretty good idea, Doctor. But I also know that you will not do it. Not to me.”

“There’s nothing I won’t do, my little human, to keep you here with me. You _will_ learn to obey me.” He leaned in toward her, pressing her against the wall, intimidating and dangerous.

She refused to give ground to his menacing tactics. She had dealt with an aggressive boyfriend in the past, and she was certainly not going to let the Doctor become like that, have that power over her. “You can jus’ take me home right now, then, if this is how things are gonna be! You do not have the right to tell me how I should live: you may be a Lord of Time, but you are not Lord of me.” She observed a trace of uncertainty diminish the fire behind his gaze, a direct consequence of her defiance, and it gave her the confidence to continue. “You. Are. Not. My. Master.”

As she spoke her final words, the flames were extinguished completely. She didn’t know what it was about her last statement that had affected him so deeply, only that the Time Lord had gasped in shock and collapsed to his knees at her feet. He buried his face in his hands. “Oh no, Rose,” he whimpered. “I’ve gone too far, haven’t I?”

Tentatively, she reached a hand out and touched his head, gently smoothing the wild mop of hair. He flinched at her touch, but she only deepened it. “Doctor, I know you would never deliberately hurt me.” And as she spoke, she realized with absolute certainty that this was the truth, despite the aggression of the last few minutes.

His body sagged in defeat, and he flopped into a sitting position against the TARDIS wall, legs spread out in front of him. She sat down beside him, and he turned to look at her. The wretchedness in his eyes caused her heart to falter. “Now, it’s ‘bout time you tell me what’s goin’ on, yeah?” she demanded.

In response, he reached out his hand. She instinctively recoiled from his touch and tears welled in his eyes. With reluctance, she allowed the contact. He traced the outline of her face, stopping when his palm was tenderly cupping her chin. His thumb stroked across her lips, and with subtle insistence he tilted her face up toward his, leaned in, and brought his lips to press against hers. His kiss conveyed so much love and need that she was momentarily overwhelmed, unsure of how to respond. She wanted to kiss him back, had craved it for so long. But she didn’t trust the intent behind the kiss, and knew that after his earlier hostility it would be very inappropriate to allow him this indulgence. She pulled away from his mouth hesitantly, and took his hands in her own, caressing them to let him know that she was still there, still engaged in the emotions that he had expressed, but that she needed something more concrete to help her to understand where these feelings were coming from.

“Your face, Rose. The Wire, it took your beautiful face, your beautiful mind, and I wasn’t sure I could get you back. It nearly won, Rose. It nearly took you from me forever…” His voice trailed away into nothingness. “What if I had lost you, never been able to see you ever again? It was all my fault for leaving you alone.”

“Not your fault, Doctor.” She brought his hands to her lips and softly pressed kisses to the backs of his long fingers, reassuring him in a whisper. “You didn’t let that happen. I put myself in that situation. I’m so sorry. But, you: you brought me back to you.”

“But I should never have left you alone to begin with, Rose,” the dark edge returned to his voice. “I’m always putting you in danger, and one day…”

“We do seem to find trouble.” She couldn’t supress a nervous giggle. “But, Doctor, helpin' people, discoverin' new things with you, gives me a life worth livin'!”

He sighed wearily, and Rose felt his eyes watching her expectantly. When she explored their forlorn, brown depths, she was struck by the contrast with the black fury she had witnessed there just moments before. Now, they were pleading with her to keep speaking. “Doctor, sometimes we work side by side (that’s the best, havin' your hand to hold.)” She allowed him to see the love in her own eyes. “And sometimes, it’s ‘divide and conquer’. But we’re always a team, you and me. I _will_ die someday, yeah. We both know that’ll happen: curse of the Time Lords, and all that. But you can’t just keep me in a safe, little box. While I still can, I need to be out there with you, and you need me there... to keep you from… from goin' too far,” she stammered.

He was quiet, simply staring at her, listening to her words, mesmerised. It was more than a little unnerving, his silence, but she returned the stillness, taking the opportunity to gather her conflicted thoughts. When she finally spoke, her voice was a hoarse whisper, “I don’t know how we go on from here. You crossed a line today, Doctor…”

She looked down at their hands, still entwined, and couldn’t bring herself to pull away from that tenuous link to her Doctor. He followed the path of her eyes, and gently withdrew his hands from hers. “I’m sorry, Rose. So sorry that you had to see the truth of me. I’ll take you home.”

“ _No! No!_ I _really_ don’t want to go! Did you not just hear what I said, just now?” She reached out for his hands again, but he quickly stood up, out of her reach, his back turned to her.

“It’s for your safety,” he added, his voice taking on the detached quality it did when he was supressing his emotions, not allowing her to see what he felt for her. “Go pack your bags, Rose.”

“Stop it! Just stop it!” she shouted in a panic. “Don’t you run from me, now, after you kissed me like that! Don’t you dare pretend that this will solve anything!” She scrambled to her feet, snatching at his pinstriped back and holding tight to the fabric. “Turn around and look at me!”

“What do you want from me, Rose?” His voice was tired, his eyes sorrowful as he faced her.

“Jus' you… as you are. I’ve seen what you hide, Doctor, even though you try to keep it from me. It’s jus'… well, it’s never been directed _at_ me before. But, I said it earlier, and I meant it: I _know_ you would never deliberately hurt me. What you do, you do for my protection, even when I would rather have it any other way. Like supressin' your feelin's until they explode out of you, like today,” she chided, grabbing a hold of his hands again.

He was silent again for a long moment, eyes cast downward in shame. “I just… oh Rose, I just get so scared.” Another long pause, then: “I’ve come in to your room at night to watch you sleep… before today, when things had been too dangerous,” he blurted out. “Needed to know you were still there.” His forehead creased into a vulnerable frown and Rose knew that he was frightened about how she would receive this sudden confession.

Rose just smiled in wonder that he would speak so openly to her, cherishing the fact that he trusted her enough to expose his soul to her in this way. “Should have let me know you were there, Doctor. There were lots of nights I could have used a hug. Lots of times I was so scared, I didn’t want to sleep, ‘cause I knew the nightmares would come.”

“I have bad dreams too. You know I don’t sleep much, but when I do the nightmares are always there. About the war, Gallifrey burning, and… over the last year or so, about you, Rose. My guilt over everything I have done or failed to do; the mistakes I have made; my fears for the future, your future, our future. I tell myself I should just let you go. It would be so much easier, in a way, not needing to face the potential horrors that await you. But I’m selfish, Rose. Over nine hundred years of living before I met you, and now… after just two, I can’t imagine being able to go on if...” She felt his grip on her hand tighten. “My life would be so empty without you here.”

Rose rested her hand on his chest, between his two frantically beating hearts. “I’ll be here as long as I can, Doctor. If you ever need some holdin’, jus’ let me know. I need to know you’re there too, and I always feel safest when you hold me…” She bit her lip shyly, flicking her eyes up to meet his.

He responded by wrapping his arms around her, and drawing her as close to him as their bodies would allow. She melted into his embrace, allowing their unspoken love to fill their souls and spill out to one another. Then suddenly, he pushed her back from him, his fearful uncertainty evident in the tension that stiffened his body. “What is this, Rose? What's happening? You deserve so much more than this… than me…”

“This is us goin' forward, Doctor. This is us, _together_ , crossin' back over that line in the right direction. This is us makin' sure that you give me what I deserve from now on. And, I suppose, me tryin' not to wander off and scare you. Teamwork, yeah?” Rose spoke resolutely, but inside she was trembling, wondering how he would respond.

She felt him enfold her in his arms. And this time when he bent his head down to taste her lips, she returned the kiss with all the love she could impart: tender, sweet, and honest. Eventually, reluctantly, they pulled apart, but remained joined by their hands. A small smile returned to the Doctor’s face when he spoke. “So, how about I get you that breakfast, Rose Tyler: tea, toast, strawberry jam … or how about some scones, Rose? I could bake you a batch of the best banana scones you’ve ever tasted!”

“Scones! Really! That sounds brilliant! And I really _could_ use a cuppa,” she sighed. “You know, though,” she quipped, hoping to maintain the little bit of levity that was working its way toward something resembling their usual banter, “you’re really surprisin’ me: makin' me breakfast; even suggestin' bakin' scones! I never thought that you would be willin' to do somethin' so… domestic.”

“Nah, Rose, don’t be silly,” he replied with a serious expression that was softened by the mocking glint in his eye. “I don’t do domestic, you know that! It’s simply that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s just another way for me to make sure that you stay safe and well. And,” his serious expression returned as he squeezed her hand reassuringly, “it’s me starting to make sure I give you what you deserve.”


End file.
